Mists of Pandaria Beta: UI Changes Preview

While
exploring the many new things that the World of Warcraft: Mists of
Pandaria beta has to offer, I’ve had my fair share of time to
experience the new U.I. changes that this expansion will bring to the
game. While not as plentiful or as earth shaking, (no pun intended) as
those U.I. modifications seen in the last expansion, Cataclysm, the
changes found in Mists of Pandaria were exciting nonetheless. Continue
reading on for a brief look at all the U.I. changes that may be coming
soon to a WoW game near you.

Mists of Pandaria Beta: U.I.
Changes Preview

Spellbook Listings
Update

The WoW
Spellbook has been
given a totally new layout in Mists of Pandaria. In the beta the
Spellbook lumps your character’s spells into one of two
categories; Passive or Active. Active skills are considered skills that
can be triggered by the player. Passive skills on the other hand come
from talents or the players specialization and do not have to be player
activated. While I am personally not one for oversimplifying the game,
I think the Spellbook is one area that was desperately in need of an
overhaul. With this new look players will be able to more easily see
which spells need to make it to the toolbar and which are safe to leave
in the book.

Vendor
Filters

Throwing
players for a loop
since the most recent beta patch, a new
filtering system has been
implemented for all vendors throughout the game. This system allows WoW
players to sort through all items a particular vendor has to offer
based on several criteria options.
Players can now search for items
based on their spec, class, or even for bind-on-equip only items. While
players have been able to do this via various addons for some time, it
is excellent to that see, once again, Blizzard has taken the initiative
and brought a modification into the game that will be sure to make the
life of players a bit easier on a day to day basis.

Dungeon and Raid Finder
Combined

The two window interface for
the Dungeon and Raid Finder is no more. In its place players will find
themselves faced with a sleek new interface that combines both the
Dungeon and Raid Finder as well as the new Scenario Finder and
Challenge Modes. This new window features tabbed browsing which is a
step up from the drop down menus of the past. In this new layout
players will easily be able to view the options available to them and
choose the one they want with ease. The days of bulky drop down menus and
tons of windows and extra frames is heading the way of the Keyring;
into sweet oblivion, and I for one am pleased with the change.

Check out page two for more
exciting changes coming to the user interface in
Mists of Pandaria!

New
Buffs Interface

In another measure of combining
and downsizing in WoW, Blizzard has shorn down the number of buffs
players will be able to bring to a raid to just eight in Mists of
Pandaria. These eight
buffs include:

Mastery

Stamina

Stats

Critical Strike

Spell Haste

Attack Power

Spell Power

Haste

While players may bulk at this
change, it is really aimed at making things a little less complicated
in a group or raid. Tracking buffs will become easier and groups will
be able to provide more buff action despite their composition. The new
WoW interface comes packaged in the form of a tiny little button at the
top of the screen. This button will only appear when the player enters
a group or raid. Below the button players will find a counter that lets
them know how many of the buffs they currently have active. For more
information players need only to hover over this icon where they will
find the list of buffs, as well as which are active and which are not,
displayed before them. For more infomration on this topic check out Ghostcrawler's
insightful blog post on the
matter.

Talents Overhaul

Unless you’ve been
living under a proverbial rock, you have heard at least something about
the talent changes that are to be unleashed upon WoW with Mists of
Pandaria. Along with the talent changes comes a new talent interface
look that is utterly simplistic in form. Talent trees have been cut
down and players will find themselves faced with six talent tiers, each
containing three talent choices from which players may choose one as
they reach the corresponding level.

Also found in this menu is the
specialization screen which has also been cleaned up and simplified.
The layout of the character specialization screen closely resembles the
Dungeon and Raid Finder screen perhaps indicating that many more menus
will be seeing this sleek new look implemented in the future. The Glyph
screen, the final menu here, has seen little change in the beta,
however, you will notice that several glyph slots are missing and Prime
Glyphs have been removed from the game as well.

Remember, the changes to the
WoW U.I. outlined above are found on the beta realm and as such may not
be what players see when Mists of
Pandaria is launched. However, now is
the time to get your opinion heard so that Blizzard can fine-tune and
polish this model into something amazing, so be sure to share your
thoughts in the comments section below!